Arena Mode (24 page)

Cole rushed forward and slammed her fist into Ozaki’s face. When the strike connected, her entire arm crackled with blue energy, and sounded like thunder. The tooth-rattling punch sent the Japanese baseball legend soaring backwards, snapping a park bench with her spine.

Relentless, Cole pounced, pinning Ozaki beneath her weight. Using her mixed martial arts training, The Crusher unleashed a furious barrage of ‘ground and pound’, a technique as brutal as its description. Bucking and twisting from beneath, Ozaki attempted to avoid being repeatedly smashed in the jaw, but for the most part she was unsuccessful.

Ozaki reached to her side, and in a move of ingenuity (and more likely, pure desperation) clawed a small fragment of loose stone from the walkway. It heated in her hand and burst into flames. She slammed the burning rock into her attacker’s face, sending Cole tumbling backwards, screaming as she clasped her shattered cheekbone.

Sensing a momentum shift, Ozaki stumbled to the opposite side of the park and located a decorative flower bed, scooping a stone from the garden. She held the rounded, baseball-sized rock with both palms and massaged it into a flaming meteor. She pitched it like a fastball, missing Cole’s head by just inches. The blackened rock sailed out of the park, trailing an orange streak of flames behind it, embedding deep into the building across the street.

The fight continued for several minutes in close quarters; they exchanged volleys of punches, kicks, and rib-cracking stomps. The more experienced in hand-to-hand combat, Cole was able to beat Ozaki into submission, eventually knocking her to the ground with a stiff roundhouse kick to the temple.

Ozaki was sprawled at her attacker’s feet, fading in and out of consciousness.

Then something interesting happened – something almost admirable. Cassandra Cole showed a measure of sportsmanship, and displayed a virtue we’d yet to see in this tournament: mercy. She stepped back, and asked if Ozaki would like to continue. Cole was offering her the opportunity to tap out, and leave the competition with her life.

That’s when it happened: a lightning-fast ambush.

Vitesse sprinted through the park and slashed at Cole’s back with his extended blade, opening a wide, gruesome gash across her exposed lower back. He spun and slashed again, nicking her carotid artery as she collapsed.

Cole clapped her hands over the laceration on her neck, desperately trying to stop the bleeding, but it was too late. She was in a state of panic, and her pulse only quickened. A dark red fountain burst from between her fingers, spattering the surrounding area. The fighter lasted less than a minute before her life drained into the walkway beneath her.

Ozaki had staggered to her feet just in time to suffer a series of slashes as well, slicing her flesh to ribbons.

As soon as the damage was done, Vitesse raced out of the park, rounding the corner before disappearing out of camera range.

A moment later, Fudō appeared. Observing the fallen superhumans, he noticed some activity at his metallic feet. Ozaki was moving. She had been slashed with several surface wounds, and was drenched in her own blood, but was still very much alive. It looked as if Fudō was helping his fellow Japanese competitor to her feet, but he surprised her – and everyone watching around the world – with his next action. He drew the katana from his back and pivoted, slicing through her torso with surgical precision.

As Ozaki fell, her body dropped in two separate pieces.

“Holy shit.”
I couldn’t believe what I’d seen.

“I know,” she replied, removing her hands from my cheeks. “It was
brutal
.”

“It’s not just that,” I said, rubbing my temples in small circles. “I think you’re right. Something is going on here. Vitesse and Fudō could be in on a plan.” I was always curious about his strategy to kill the medical staff, but something else was at play. When the Frenchman used his blade, he did it without the intention of killing either of them. The strikes were all slashes – shallow wounds that would certainly cause some serious injuries, but not death. Catching Cole across her neck looked more like an accident that occurred in the heat of battle, and he clearly left Ozaki alive with slashes to the arms and legs. It was in stark contrast with his gruesome attack in Times Square, where he was merciless. The job wasn’t complete until he’d eviscerated the doctor and nurses, leaving them in scattered pieces.

Fudō arrived in the park shortly afterwards, finishing the job. Did he form some sort of an alliance with Vitesse? Fudō could have been pursuing him, and just happened upon the bodies – or maybe the entire sequence was nothing more than a coincidence.

“So what if they
are
working together,” Brynja asked, “Vitesse and Fudō – what do we do from here?”

“I have no idea,” I replied. “But if I had to guess, Vitesse is monitoring the screens around the city, using the live simulcast to pick and choose his targets. I think he saw where Cole and Ozaki were, waited until they were injured towards the end of their fight, and sprinted in for the kill.”

We wanted to discuss things further, but time was ticking away. As we cautiously stepped out of the alley and searched the area for other competitors, I spotted a holo-screen on the side of a building across the intersection. We approached in time to catch the end of an announcement by Cameron Frost. It was nothing special; he was spouting a generic, PR-friendly statement where he expressed his overall satisfaction with the tournament, and was pleased with the honor displayed by the competitors.

I wasn’t sure how much ‘honor’ was at play when Vitesse stabbed one of the competitors in the back, or when Fudō bisected another when she was nearly defenseless. While Frost and I shared some common interests, I was beginning to see where our philosophies severely differed.

When his segment ended, the simulcast feed resumed. It cut to a wide open street, and two competitors snapped into focus. Brynja and I, standing in front of a holo-screen, unarmed.

“How smart are you?” Brynja whispered, trying to prevent her voice from being picked up by the long-range microphones.

I have my moments,
I thought.

“Good,” she said with a small nod. “Because we’re gonna need a plan in the next couple seconds, and it’d better be a good one.”

I had an idea, and for the first time I was one step ahead of the competition. I knew exactly where we were going, and exactly what we required in order to pull off my plan.

The trick would be to pull it off without getting killed.

Brynja and I searched the expansive underground parking garage
, which was only one of four in The City without functioning security cameras.

The cams were under maintenance after a power surge that struck two nights before, and they still hadn’t been repaired due to a labor dispute (that’s what you get when you try and save money by low-balling electricians from the Dark Zone instead of paying a fair wage). I knew this because I read the message boards of every condo corporation in Manhattan; most of which weren’t password protected and always seemed to offer a generous amount of helpful updates for their residents.

It was a little surprising. For a group of paranoid rich people living in heavily-armored buildings they sure played it fast and loose with their private information. I have a feeling that after my break-in, they’d want to patch up the gaping hole in their security protocols.

The building that stretched ninety-three stories above us was particularly affluent for the area, and that’s saying a
lot
when you’re in Manhattan. Like many inhabitants of The Fringe, I wasn’t a big fan of the wealthy jerks that lived here – locked away from the rest of the world in their pristine silver towers. They often came off like royalty, perched atop a castle turret, looking down at the peasants below.

Despite all that, there’s one thing I always admired about the privileged: they knew how to shop. Each car in the garage was more exotic and expensive than the last; a streamlined BMW sports model that ran on solar power, a Ferrari from the early 1980s that was meticulously restored, a prototype of a hover-car that didn’t even require wheels to glide across the streets. I wasn’t even a car enthusiast, but these machines were absolutely gorgeous. I had to resist the urge to slide my all-access gold card into one of their ignition slots and drive off, just for the sheer joy of the experience.

“I still can’t believe you did this to me
,”
Brynja shouted from the adjacent aisle, staring into the rear-view mirror of a Porsche SUV. “My hair is blue, and it’s totally your fault.”

“How is that
my
fault?” I shouted over my shoulder, continuing to inspect each parking spot as I walked down the aisle.

“You imagined me into reality,” she replied. “And you subconsciously decided on my appearance. So that makes
my
hair
your
responsibility. For whatever reason, you wanted me to look like this, so instead of being a redhead, now I’m a ... bluehead.”

I was fairly certain there was a remorseless killer racing towards our location, ready to slice us into bloody pieces. Brynja’s hairstyle seemed a little low on the priority list. “Maybe we should call up Cameron Frost,” I suggested. “Ask him for a time-out so you can have one of his stylists give you a dye and a trim?”

“
Not
funny, Mox! This thing is being simulcast all over the world.”

“Well maybe you’ll start a new trend,” I shouted back. “Everything goes in cycles, right? Thirty years ago, blue was hot: The Smurfs, Avatar, Blu-Ray Discs ... maybe the color will make a comeback.”

I heard a small chuckle from across the parking lot. “Wow,” she shouted, “I must have lucked out – I ended up partnering with a stand-up comedian.”

Before I could answer, I found what I was looking for. I tugged the oversized dust cover from the vehicle and tossed it aside, revealing a 2041 model Toyota Firehawk – the fastest commercial racing cycle on the market. The bright yellow design with dynamic black streaks would definitely stand out, and for the purposes of my plan, that’s exactly what I was banking on.

As with all newer model vehicles, it featured a key slot. If you had a regular owner’s card, it required an additional six-digit code for ignition, but if you had a government-issued gold card like mine, it was as simple as insert and drive.

Brynja joined me as I admired my new ride. She whistled and nodded with approval, running her hand along the sleek lines of the cycle. “Nice. So you’re a bike guy, huh?”

“Yup,” I said with a small nod, pressing my lips together. “That’s me.
Big
into the bikes. All bikes, all the time.”

She looked up and placed her hand on my shoulder, eyes narrowing. “But you
do
have your own motorcycle, right? You have a licence and stuff?”

I hesitated for a moment. “No, not so much.”

“But you’ve driven one before ... right?”

“Yeah, for sure,” I replied. “Not a Firehawk, but my neighbor lent me his Vespa once. I had it up to fifty on the open road. I figure this can’t be all that different. They both have handlebars, two wheels ... so ...”

Her blank expression conveyed a serious lack of enthusiasm.

“Look,” I said, “this isn’t perfect, but we either go with my plan, or we fight Fontaine hand-to-hand, with nothing but a lone bullet and your grappling hook.”

Brynja nodded, reluctantly agreeing to my strategy. I had to admit that I was worried about my level of skill on a motorcycle, especially since we’d have to travel at speeds in excess of eighty miles per hour – enough to outrun the fastest superhuman in recorded history.

My armor was another issue. I didn’t have a helmet since I’d lost it in the ambulance crash, and the acid from Serafina’s blood forced me to abandon my gauntlets. My chest plate, shoulder pads, leg guards and boots were still in decent shape, if not a little worse for wear. I could still sustain a gunshot or a strike from a sword in most places, but at the time, my concern was the level of protection the suit would provide if I bailed from the bike during a hairpin turn; there was nothing to prevent massive internal damage if I wiped out or to cushion my skull if it bounced violently off the pavement.